And looking round about upon them all,
he said . . . , Stretch forth thy hand.
Luke 6:10; emphasis added
What I say unto one I say unto all.
D&C 61:18
That they all may be one;
as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.
John 17:21; emphasis added
Addressing a General Audience
To speak or write is rather straightforward. Even so, to tailor one’s words for another person presents challenges. When authors try to illuminate scripture, they are challenged not only with their own views and biases but also the reader’s hopes and expectations. Authors attempt historical accuracy, linguistic veracity, and sound doctrine as much as they are able but must acknowledge with humility that current claims could be wrong as more about ancient history, language, and doctrine is discovered and revealed. It is these grounds that will reveal a solid, respectable result. But more is needed. For in front of the work always stands the reader, who must be granted ready access to the author’s best conclusions about the grand hallways and colorful, decorated rooms of scripture. The audience is paramount.
A scriptural commentary should open the reader’s mind to the broad canvases of the text and the invisible corners that readers may not be aware of, both for the sake of its readers and for its own sake, since a commentary provides a tentative position about sacred matters. Because the BYU New Testament Commentary will rest largely on the King James translation, it must also preserve the expansive beauties of this translation while exploring its shortcomings, which rose chiefly from the soil of deficient early manuscripts and an incomplete grasp of the world of Jesus and his Apostles.
The Audience
The audience is seated in two places: within the Church and without. It may seem manifestly obvious that Church members represent one part of the Commentary’s public. But this part of the audience cannot be taken for granted. The editors and authors of the Commentary see their enterprise as an extension of the pivotal, earlier effort published in 1979 and 1981 to add substantial guides to the manifold texts of scripture for Church members, including cross references, translation notes, the Bible Dictionary, materials from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, and helpful chapter headings. In its own way, the Commentary simply expands these study aids for readers, filling them with historical detail and linguistic richness.
As an example, it is significant that at a late point in Jesus’ ministry his parables became much more stern and plain, no longer hiding truths from those not ready to receive them. Luke records that during Jesus’ last days he spoke the parable of the pounds while in Jericho (see Luke 19:11–27) and, later in Jerusalem, his parable about the wicked husbandmen and his saying about the rejected stone (see Luke 20:9–18). Each of these discloses the evident effort of Jesus, who was running out of time, to underscore the gravity of his message. This notable shift in tone thus uncovers important aspects of Jesus’ last days—he knew that his mortal end was near, and he tried to reach his hearers by speaking bluntly. On one occasion, as an illustration that his unvarnished message was reaching his audience, hearers responded, “God forbid” (Luke 20:16).
The layout of the Commentary, with its self-declared focus on the text and its setting, will readily and effortlessly bring Latter-day Saint readers inside the teeming world of the New Testament as no other work currently does. The illuminating comments on the New Testament books, the overviews of the situations that brought them forth, and the verse-by-verse excavations will assist each reader in grasping the most important age in the history of the earth: when Jesus was born, ministered, died, and was resurrected.
The second audience, those of other faiths and persuasions, is also addressed. Why? Two reasons spring to mind. First, religious scholars not of our faith who sincerely want to understand how Latter-day Saints read and apply New Testament principles should feel invited to pick up the Commentary and find familiar grounds for opening and discussing the New Testament as an object of faith and of study. The New Testament is a common heritage shared among all of us. Second, we hope readers from other denominations will come away from any review of the Commentary with a vivid sense that Latter-day Saints take the New Testament seriously and worship Jesus as the Christ. To be sure, the Christ whom they see in the pages of the Commentary may not be the same as the Christ of Christian history and tradition. But they shall see him in familiar dress nonetheless, a real person in a real place and a real time.
By its very nature, a commentary must deal with detail, whether historical, linguistic, doctrinal, or cultural. For example, how does The Commentary deal with the term translated “the inn” in Luke 2:7, where Joseph and Mary sought lodging before the birth of Jesus, and the same term translated “the guestchamber,” where Jesus ate the Last Supper with his Apostles (Luke 22:11)? Any solution will involve a rather technical discussion of the Greek word katalyma and its range of meanings in Jesus’ era as well as the Joseph Smith Translation of Luke 2:7. Naturally, a detailed discussion ties to the first occurrence of the term in Luke’s Gospel and runs for a half page. However, one of the challenges that an author in the Commentary must meet is making tedious details more accessible for readers. To this end, as in the case of “the inn” and the rest of Luke’s story, the author of The Testimony of Luke broadly presents the situation that greeted Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem as far as it can be discovered from the Gospel record and from other clues that scholarship can glean from their world. In this manner, the Commentary introduces readers to both the questions and proposed solutions that face careful students on every page of the New Testament without drowning readers in tedious detail. Thus broad discussions and technical treatments stand together in the Commentary to assist readers who come to the New Testament with a variety of interests.
Issues of Interpreting the New Testament
Our interpretation of the New Testament begins with statements of belief penned by Joseph Smith in his 1842 letter to John Wentworth, the editor of the Chicago Democrat newspaper. Now known as “The Articles of Faith,” these statements boldly declare that Latter-day Saints “believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church,” and in the matter of spiritual gifts listed by Paul (see 1 Cor. 12:4–11), they “believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth” (A of F 1:6, 7). Without apology, Latter-day Saints hold that spiritual gifts, including personal inspiration, not only lie behind the New Testament documents but also operated in the lives and ministries of members in the ancient Church. Concerning ecclesiastical powers that find a place in the New Testament, Latter-day Saints “believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to . . . administer in the ordinances” (A of F 1:5). Above all stands Joseph Smith’s announcement that “we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly” (A of F 1:8), adding a measure of caution to how we treat the New Testament texts that have come down to us. In light of these statements, Latter-day Saint authors already possess a frame that shapes the way they approach the task of interpreting the New Testament world.
With this distinct frame, why go forward with a commentary? Will not all Latter-day Saints understand passages of scripture in basically the same way? The answer is yes and no. Latter-day Saints do share a common frame of reference. In addition, each Church member can enjoy the inspiration of the Holy Ghost as a personal teaching medium when studying scripture. But these aspects by themselves do not lead, for instance, to a historical understanding of the New Testament world nor to a grasp of the subtleties of the Greek text that can lay bare the doctrinal and cultural riches in the New Testament.
For example, Jesus evidently accepted the sacred calendar that regulated the dates when the priests in the temple celebrated festivals; Jesus attended the festivals, but to our knowledge, he did not comment on whether they were celebrated on the correct dates. After scholars discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls, they learned that the Jewish people who produced the Scrolls followed a different sacred calendar—based on the sun rather than the moon—and therefore celebrated the same festivals on different dates. They believed that the priests of the temple were corrupt and followed an apostate calendar.1 If the Savior had thought that the temple calendar was out of line in the dates of its celebrations, particularly because he viewed the temple as his “Father’s house” (John 2:16), we would expect to see a record of his objections in the Gospels. But we do not. This calendrical concern is no small matter because the temple was the center of worship in Jesus’ world and drew intense interest from all quarters.
As a second example, we turn to the Greek text. When the angel Gabriel visited Mary, he declared that she was “favoured” of God and had “found favour with God” (Luke 1:28, 30). Three other passages tie linguistically to the words translated here as “favoured” and “favour.” All of them apply to Jesus, first in his youth and then in his adulthood. The KJV renders them as “grace” or “favour” or “gracious.” In the first instance, after Joseph and Mary had located permanently in Nazareth, we read that “the child [Jesus] grew, . . . and the grace of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40; emphasis added). The second occurrence appears after the famous scene of the youthful Jesus teaching at the temple: “Jesus increased . . . in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52; emphasis added). The third reports the reaction of the Nazareth congregation to the opening words of Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue: “All bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of [Jesus’] mouth” (Luke 4:22; emphasis added). These three passages affirm clearly that, in Gabriel’s words to Mary, she stood on a spiritual continuum with her divine son. As Jesus enjoyed celestial approval throughout his life, so Mary enjoyed the same approval in God’s eyes.2
In pursuing its path to communicate with all, the Commentary must make a case for LDS views of the New Testament that matches the objections of critics, current or future. For starters, the publication of the Commentary will go a long way in answering a common complaint from some Christians that Latter-day Saints have produced few serious studies on the New Testament. The Commentary will also address another concern that the LDS view of Jesus is colored by the lens of a Restoration. Although it is important that the Commentary attempts to reveal the best in Christian and academic scholarship, it is also important to note that all discussions on nascent Christianity are colored by assumptions and theological positions. For instance, some Christian scholars will argue for the necessity of baptism, while others, citing the same passages of scripture, will urge that baptism is optional and, perhaps, not needed for salvation.
At the top of the doctrinal objections sits the matter of the Godhead or, to borrow traditional Christian language, the Trinity. For most other Christians, God has always been God. Moreover, resting their case on expressions such as “the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1–2), Christian scholars view Latter-day Saints as holding to a less-divine Christ, or to a somewhat-diminished Christ, resembling the Christ of the fourth-century teacher Arius, who believed that there was “a time when Christ was not”3 and whose views precipitated the enormous theological struggles over the Godhead that beset Christianity for 150 years. Arius’s viewpoint that Christ’s divinity was derived from the Father met rejection in the grand Christian councils, beginning with Nicea in AD 325. Though its focus is on the New Testament, the Commentary has to articulate the differences between Arianism and LDS doctrine.
The Commentary also brings forward reasons why Latter-day Saints accept official statements such as “God the Eternal Father . . . is the literal Parent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” and “Jesus Christ is the Son of Elohim [the Father] both as spiritual and bodily offspring.”4 Such statements, as some Christians read them, lessen Christ as God. Furthermore, Joseph Smith declared that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man” and “he [God] was once a man like us.”5 In the minds of some Christians, these declarations may narrow the chasm that properly divides sinless God from sinful humans. And because traditional Christian views on the Godhead arise chiefly from the pages of the New Testament,6 the Commentary explains how Latter-day Saints interpret key passages about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
